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An anonymous reader writes "A few weeks ago, Senators Patrick Leahy and Orrin Hatch introduced the 'Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act' (COICA) bill, which was discussed here on Slashdot. The main part of the bill would allow the Justice Department to shut down websites that it deems are 'dedicated to infringing activities,' without a trial (due process is so old fashioned). Of course, in reviewing the bill, it's important to note that pretty much every new technology in the entertainment industry over the last century was deemed 'dedicated to infringing activities,' so here's a list of all of the technologies COICA would have banned in the past, including Hollywood itself, radio, cable television, the photocopier, the iPod and more."

I never thought I'd see the day when a tech law would get better, more accurate coverage in the political press than the technical press, but COICA seems to have managed just that. See here. [talkingpointsmemo.com] Short story: this legislation replaces the existing federal authority granted in the 1934 Communications Act with a much narrower and better controlled authority. As such, it would pretty dramatically restrict the government's ability to shut down websites, not expand it. But hey...that's no reason to refrain from bashing the administration for being fascists, right?

Every industry has made a fuss about something that might potentially hurt the bottom line. The best one I heard was the car industry refusing seat belts early on because they argued it would give the perception that their automobiles were not safe.

Me neither, But then again, the original argument "who would fund the creation of new music if everyone shared it freely?" makes the exact same amount of sense. It is only detectable as non-sarcasm because of who is saying it, who they are suing, etc.

As someone who likes to cook, I am surprised that so many recipe books continue to get published. There are just so many free resources on the internet, but, somehow, Rachael Ray and Paula Deene keep cranking them out.

How does copyright 'guarantee profits' or prevent someone from having a better product? All copyright attempts to do is say 'if you want MY product, you get it from ME, on terms we agree on'. And make no mistake, the 'product' is the song, movie, story, etc, NOT the CD, DVD, or book it is contained on. You are perfectly free to make a 'better' song, movie, or book than me.

So is my contribution to your new work vital or not? If it is, is there any reason you should not get my permission to use it? If my contribution is not vital to your new work, remove it and you owe me nothing.

Except for when overly broad copyright means you are potentially infringing regardless of what you create.If three notes are enough to infringe upon a song, it is functionally impossible to make new, non-infringing songs. Similar arguments can be made about other fields.

So you're saying that all of the 318,000 new books published in the UK and US last year are infringing copyright? Seems to me there were a lot of new songs released last year also (including many by indie artists). And plenty of new movies. The courts must be jam-packed with all those lawsuits, I wonder why we don't hear about them?

Yes, every single one of those books could be busted for infringing, if the cartel guarding the gates wanted to do so. But of course they don't, they only use their evil powers against those outside the cartel.

I am sure you do.Why should I have to pay for food. It grows on trees.

Really I do not like DRM at all but this fantasy that the cost to produce software, music, movies, tv shows, and books is pure fantasy.The cost to duplicate them is pretty low but the actual cost to produce them is significant.

And you do not have to buy the content from them. You will not die without it. You are just not free to take it.

Don't get me wrong. The cost of DVDs, CDs, and EBooks is way too high.But they also do not have to be

The problem is not the people "Creating" the stuff.Its the people making money from it for money's sake.

-They get laws written to extension a monopoly beyond reasonable terms. (Copyright extension act)-They use "Hollywood accounting" to defraud people who helped to create the "work"-They kill 1st-sale-doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine)with DRM and time limited ownership.-They get the "work" broadcasted and expect everybody to drop everything to listen/watch the broadcast. We could r

Well several sites let you stream it with commercials for free. Hulu and TV.comDVDs didn't have rootkits that was CDs and I do agree DRM sucks. If I pay for the DVD I should have the option to rip it and make a backup.

But the legal and ethical choice is to not watch it if you don't like how they are selling it.Just taking it show that it does have value to you. So much value that you will break the law to get it.That means to get the max profit they need to not drop the price but increase the penalties.

You're lucky, if I want to obey the law I have to use proxies to pretend I'm in the US. Of course, I suppose that might technically be breaking some US laws (from what I've gathered it's perfectly legal here in.se). Now, if the content providers would stop being dicks we might actually be able to get some video on the iTunes store which isn't the "iTunes University".

Well, there are swedish TV shows on various channels' websites but if I am willing to pay to watch US shows I can't since the content provider

The one good thing (in a backhanded way) about this article is that it offers the hope that someday, this stupid bullshit they're putting us through will just be a ridiculous and unsuccessful attempt by companies to overthrow reason.

A day when all these people have shouted themselves hoarse and have moved on to pick on someone else, or maybe have just died out of natural causes. A day when the people in charge of legislating the internet aren't in the dark about what it is anymore.

TFA: Tech that would be banned had the Senate had its way to protect against stuff "Dedicated to infringing activities"
GP: "I wish I could have laws written to guaranty my profits, too."
P: "'I wish I could have laws written to guaranty my profits, too.' In no way does copyright law force anyone to buy anything"

?
Like, did the gp even say "copyright"? And even if (s)he did, does matter given the context of the article and his/her post?

In no way does copyright law force anyone to buy anything, thus it does not "guaranty" or guarantee any profits to anyone. This is made pretty obvious by the thousands of starving artists in the world

And don't you think there'd be a lot fewer starving artists (well, musicians anyway) if recorded music had been prohibited as an "infringing technology"? Every nightclub and restaurant would have to hire musicians instead of just piping music over the speakers. That's a lot of musicians you could be playing standards four nights a week.

This is right up there with the "let's require by law that all phones have FM radios" idea - maybe my new car should have a buggy whip and a sack of feed as well...

It's doubtful that the economy could carry such an increase in musicians at any decent wage (even without the dead weight of the recording industry); more likely many restaurants would do without to keep prices down and turn to other ambient sounds (think wind/waterdriven random bells and such) if needed for atmosphere, and we'd all be 'poorer' as a measure of value perceived.

As monopoly pricing is set in relation to what the market can bear, not ho

Amendment ___ - Strike the clause "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

Replace with "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for Two Decades to Authors and Inventors the revocable Privilege to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

Alas, that clause is already optional in the constitution. Congress has the power to scale down or revoke that privilege, if they think it no longer serves its intended purpose. If Congress really cared about the welfare of the people rather than filling their pockets with lobbyist money, they'd be phasing copyright out instead of extending it.

I disagree. I think putting Copyright back to its original terms would be perfect:

The first federal copyright act, the Copyright Act of 1790 granted copyright for a term of "fourteen years from the time of recording the title thereof", with a right of renewal for another fourteen years if the author survived to the end of the first term

How many of those works are still making a significant profit for their creators after 14 years? 28? With the exception of novels, and possibly painting reproductions, a creative work has a shelf life of single-digit years. And even in those two cases, the average shelf life is pretty short; the ones that continue to turn a profit for decades are few and far between. Yet we deprive the public domain of these works that might otherwise see a resurgence in popularity under the false assumption that they m

Except that they can't. A corporation isn't a large group of individuals that decided to get together. It is an organization of a company that is typically owned by a small number of individuals (as few as one) for the purposes of protecting the assets of the proprietors if the company fails and to protect the proprietors from legal responsibility if the company does something in appropriate (usually). There is no good reason for a corporation to be treated as a person, as the sole purpose of a corporation is to prevent the individuals that make it up from having liability. Granting those people rights without liability attached is fundamentally unjust.

Corporate contributions to political campaigns, for example, means that someone in a position to dictate policy for a corporation is able to spend the money of other people without them really having any say in the matter. I mean sure, they could ostensibly sell their shares, but that just means that a different group of people are getting screwed. More to the point, that wealth was acquired because of the workers that make up the corporation, yet they have no real say whatsoever in how the money is spent except insofar as some of them may also be minority shareholders. In effect, this means that the voices of a few are amplified unfairly due solely to their being in charge of a corporation. In addition to these people casting one vote through their personal financial contributions, they are able to cast a second vote through corporate contributions, whereas the average citizen cannot realistically do the same. This promotes inequality in which the people with the most money and power are able to exert undue influence, thus increasing their money and power, in a sort of perverse feedback loop. This is exactly contrary to the founding principle of democracy---the notion that all are created equal abd should have equal rights under the law.

Unions are only slightly better. In principle, people have the right to refuse to join a union and can merely pay their "fair share" dues---the collective bargaining portion of the union dues without the political portion. In practice, however, the unions stand for many things, and there is no practical way for a union member to say that they will allow their dues to be spent on some, but not all of its political goals. As such, because it is a "take it or leave it" proposition and because contributions from a union represent substantially greater weight than individual contributions, members are unlikely to deny everything merely because they disagree with some of the union's positions. This again means that the decision-making process is taken out of the hands of its members and given to its elected leaders, again unfairly exaggerating the voice of a few on many issues.

I'd be fine with all the corporate and union contributions if I could say on an individual basis that their contribution must be reduced by 0.002% to account for me withholding my portion thereof. As long as this is not the case---as long as I don't have a vote on each individual issue---then corporations and unions do not accurately reflect the will of the people who comprise them, and as such, those contributions are a fundamental usurpation of power, denying us our rights as shareholders, union members, and workers in those corporations.

If i person gets someone killed they go to jail - if a company gets someone killed they might get fined..

Err. No.

Corporations and other such organizations cannot be charged with a crime, such charges are applied to people. The actors of the crime. If you commit a non crime killing, you'll be subject to civil charges, not criminal charges. As fines associated with civil charges are generally scaled to your wealth, the fine itself would be a lot loss.

The thing crazy people like to forget is that "imaginary people" such as corporations are....imaginary. They cannot act because they do not exist. Thus actions are always the acts of people. If a crime occurs, it's a person engaging in them. If a right is being exercised, it's a person engaging in them. Corporations in particular, and similarly but differently for PACs and Unions, the organizations exist as a formalized organizational structure to assist investment and decision making. When that decision making leads to illegal activity, the decision makers and actors are both vulnerable to criminal charges. In addition, the people involved -and- the corporation itself is vulnerable to civil charges.

>>>"imaginary people" such as corporations are....imaginary. They cannot act because they do not exist.

Tell that to the people manslaughtered by the Ford Corporation when their Pinto cars blew-up. And yes accidents happen but the Corporation knew the fuel tanks were flawed and decided (as a whole), it was cheaper to just pay the dead people's families. That's practically premeditation. But what can you do?

Nothing except fine the company while the specific individuals that made the decision take golden parachutes and escape without punishment for their crime. The corporation should be treated as an object and nothing more. The company can keep its immunity but it shall have no rights; only privileges which can be revoked at anytime with a mere act of Congress.

Tell that to the people manslaughtered by the Ford Corporation when their Pinto cars blew-up. And yes accidents happen but the Corporation knew the fuel tanks were flawed and decided (as a whole), it was cheaper to just pay the dead people's families. That's practically premeditation. But what can you do?

Point out that in the case in question [wfu.edu], the pinto had a missing gas cap and was hit at 55 mph by a van with a plank for a front bumper. It's unreasonable to expect a pijnto to survive that. The fact that they estimate a $11/unit design change would save 180 lives is offensive, but probably not relevant to the specific case.

You can argue both sides of this - cheaping out on something that makes a car safer causes an emotional response, but requiring a company to implement whatever it can to improve safety ma

Now, suppose that I'm doing something on my own, and as a direct action of something negligent I do somebody dies. I can spend years behind bars for that. Suppose that I'm acting strictly according to corporate policy: in that case, the corporation will pay a fine, and nobody's going to prison.

Remember the Sony rootkit? Who went to prison over that one? I'm pretty sure who would have gone to prison if I, a private citizen, had done something like that.

>>>Corporations and PACs and Unions all are made up of people, so you're claiming that the constituent people have no rights

I really wish Americans would learn reading comprehension.

I said nothing of the kind. While my proposed amendment would forbid Microsoft Corporation (for example) from having a right to free speech, or right to hire lobbyists inside the halls of Congress, or right to buy ads to support a favorite Shill for congressman..... the individual janitors, programmers, managers, et

This is insightful? The individuals have their rights regardless of the corporation. The corporation having rights as a person in effect "enhances" the rights of a few people (the owners) beyond their individual rights. That is, the corporation can act illegally, making millions of dollars (to understate it a bit), pass those profits along to the owners, get caught, declare bankruptcy, reorganize, and start again. Oops, I see now from your post below that you have no idea what you are talking about.

It strikes me as odd that people who claim "corporations should be treated as if they were an individual" with rights, never grant the corporation the right to vote in elections. Why that particular exception? Answer: Because they know that corporations are not individuals and NOT entitled to the same rights as actual human beings.

As long as there is transparency, and as long as the individuals get to choose whether their contributions get used for a particular purpose, that's fine. Groups should not have power in and of themselves, however. If I leave a PAC because they have drifted too far from their original purpose, I should have the right to take back my contribution. If I decide that my union is doing something stupid, I should be able to reduce their contribution by 1/200,000th. If I decide that the company I work for is m

unforutinetly the wealthy are the ones lining Congress' pockets, so of course Congress is going to do what they want. As bad as it sounds, they don't much care about unemployment because the unemployed don't contribute to their lifestyles.

Congressional income from taxpayer money is a fixed amount. They make $X per year to be a member of Congress... regardless of how good or bad the economy is doing. They get kickbacks and campaign donations which supplements their income from PACs and businesses and lobbyists.

You seem to have a rather interesting misapprehension of how campaign finance works.

The campaign contributions are not personal income and cannot be used as such but only for campaign purposes. For the most part, personal money is also excluded from being used for campaign purposes although every once in a while some self-funded candidate comes along and a lot of news is about how they are doing. Self-funded folks rarely win.

You seem to have a rather interesting misapprehension of how campaign finance ACTUALLY works.

Where exactly does all the money go? Congressmen are apparently campaigning all the time. Even better, they "hire" family members and closely related business entities and "purchase" services from them.

Its all complete bullshit. Our congressmen are being legally bribed all the time right in front of our faces. The faster people start realizing that fact, the faster we can outlaw all "donations" to any elect

when law meets technology, law bends, not technology. sure, the law can do a lot of damage, but technological progress is inevitable. at the very worst, if an insane amount of effort went into keeping society stuck in the past, even if they were somehow practically enforceable, other societies would vault ahead of the usa

the obvious benefits of progress would be seen in the other country and become envy. the threat the technology posed would be seen as sham, and the benefits would be clear: those other soci

Nerds are always heated up about weapons? I must have missed the memo on that one. Now if you meant we're annoyed at how difficult it is to legally purchase a firearm in certain states then I would certainly agree...

when law meets technology, law bends, not technology. sure, the law can do a lot of damage, but technological progress is inevitable.

There is no such thing as "technological progress". As a technique becomes more effective in the setting that it is in, it inevitably becomes less effective in every other setting, which means that as the external circumstances change, which they inevitably do, the technique becomes defunct.

"The Legal System" is a perfect example. "The Financial System" is another. The

Let's not forget that Orrin Hatch makes a habit of trying to legislate against technology. This is the same douchebag that a few years ago proposed blowing up all computers that illegally downloaded music.

Orrin Hatch is one of the most deeply corrupt enemies of copyright reform in the history of copyright. Thankfully he has not been able to obtain a level of power sufficient to fully support his comically evil campaign of unconstitutional kickbacks to big media.

If anyone remembered the legal battles Diamond had to fight against the RIAA to keep the Rio PMP 300 in production, it is a miracle we have MP3 players at all.

After the RIAA vs. Diamond fight, every player out there had some form of DRM [1], at the minimum something to keep people from copying music from the device to the computer. Some players had a proprietary application. Others encrypted the music with a key only that player had when it was copied.

A couple of years from now Senator Hatch will be history. He has been in there far too long, and is flaky on any number of issues such as this one. It is nearly a foregone conclusion that his party members in the state of Utah are going to dump him for somebody new when he is up for re-election in 2012, someone certainly more libertarian in character. Rep. Jason Chaffetz for example.

cable tv?? they where taking a free OTA feed and putting it on the cable line and for some people that was the way to ota as some people did not get a good ota signal and you where paying for the cable systems line and there antenna. Some people where able to get the same stuff for if they put up there own ota antenna at there own cost.

later came the non OTA pay stuff (some area had uhf scrambled tv before areas got cable)

also back then you where about to get C-BAND and get lots of free stuff but you had to

I would have cheered any decision that eliminated the possibility of cable TV companies taking OTA signals and charging for them as was done in the 1970s and 1980s. The concept of engaging munipalities in a "franchise contract" that enforced a monopoly position of the cable company is also a somewhat silly idea.

We are now in a situation because of this where after the digital TV conversion it is impossible to receive decent signals in many rural and semi-rural places in the US. Your only choices are satel

It's amazing, every second story on/. is about how the government is trying to take away more and more Liberties and Freedoms that are intrinsic to the people and even those that are granted by amendments in a more specific way and I argue [slashdot.org] that this [slashdot.org] is what [slashdot.org] is wrong [slashdot.org] with the governments [slashdot.org] but over [slashdot.org] and over [slashdot.org] people fight [slashdot.org] me on this here, completely missing the point that they are less Free with every bill that the government passes, they are staring right at it and cannot see it, I do not understand this, but I understand that if even on/. this is the general attitude, then in the rest of the population this has to be even more pronounced, so basically nothing will change, people want to be controlled and punished and ruled by tyrants. People have decided this is what they need, it's sad.

As it turns out in a recent study the human brain can be used with the assistance of Vision, Touch, Auditory, Olfactory, and Taste organs to duplicate all manor of infringing copyrighted/patented technologies!